Lactate dehydrogenase as a biomarker in oral cancer and oral submucous fibrosis

Abstract

Background: Oral cancer is the commonest cause of death in the Indian population, with a mortality rate of 0.3 million deaths per year. Oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF) is a potentially malignant disorder that has a high prevalence rate in India. It has been found that serum lactate dehydrogenase levels are increased in potentially malignant and malignant disorders. There are very few data on the application of salivary LDH in the detection of such disorders.

Aims and objectives: The estimation of LDH levels in saliva as diagnostic markers, using a noninvasive method in patients with OSMF, oral cancer, and in the controls.

Methods: A total of 60 subjects with the age range of 20-70 years were selected from the Department of Oral Medicine & Radiology and were grouped into three groups. Twenty-five subjects with clinically diagnosed OSMF (Group I), 25 subjects with histopathologically diagnosed oral cancer (Group II), and 10 subjects as control (Group III). Five milliliters of unstimulated whole saliva was aseptically collected. Following which, the collected saliva was centrifuged and then analyzed by ERBA-CHEM 5 semi auto-analyzer. The values obtained were statistically analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired t-test using the SPSS software version 22. P-value < 0.05- was taken as significant.

Results: The mean LDH levels were Group I 608.28 ± 30.22, Group II 630.96 ± 39.80, and Group III 182.21 ± 34.85. The P-value obtained was 0.0009 for both Group I and Group II which was highly significant.

Conclusion: Salivary LDH levels were consistently higher in OSMF and oral cancer; hence, it could be a future biomarker.

Keywords: biomarker; lactate dehydrogenase; oral squamous cell carcinoma; oral submucous fibrosis; potentially malignant disorder; saliva.